42 Biology in America 



the fossils of the Port Kennedy cave, then recently discovered 

 on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. 



But if the labors of Leidy and his colleagues were actuated 

 by high-spirited and idealistic love of science, they were none 

 the more free from the comedy of petty selfishness. Ever 

 eager to forestall the others in the announcement of their 

 "finds" they occasional!}^ made ludicrous mistakes through 

 their haste in publication. On one occasion Cope got hold 

 of some bones of an ancient reptile from Kansas. The ani- 

 mal's head was missing and certain other bones which are 

 usually included in the skeleton of any orthodox beast, but 

 Cope in his enthusiasm, and apparently in a state of headless- 

 ness resembling his subject, described them under the dignified 

 title of Elasmosaurus platyurus. But Leidy, ever keen to 

 detect a slip on the part of an opponent, made a more care- 

 ful examination of the defunct and announced an error in 

 the epitaph which Cope had written, as the remains belonged 

 to a different creature altogether, namely Enaliosaurus, 

 Cope's mistake being due to having reversed the animal end 

 for end, and imagined a head where the tail rightfully be- 

 longed. 



In his early recollections of Leidy, Marsh and Cope, Osborn 

 says that "whereas in Leidy we had a man of the temper of 

 an exact observer, Cope was a man who loved speculation; 

 if Leidy was the natural successor of Cuvier, Cope was 

 the follower of Lamarck, a man of remarkable inventive genius. 

 . . . Marsh . . . was a comparative anatomist of a high 

 order, and had a genius for appreciating what might be called 

 the most important thing in science. He always knew where 

 to explore, where to seek the transition stages, and he never 

 lost the opportunity to point out at the earliest possible mo- 

 ment the most significant fact to be discovered and dissemi- 

 nated. . . . 



"I had the pleasure of knowing Leidy slightly and of a 

 long personal ac(|uaintanee with Marsh ; I knew Cope very 

 intimately. . . . On one memorable occasion when I visited 

 his house he pulled out a drawer of his black walnut work- 

 table, where he always sat and wrote his papers, and brought 

 out a packet carefully done up in paper and twine, saying, 

 'Osborn, here are some records that you have never seen 

 before.' I said, 'Well, what are they?' He replied, 'These 

 are my ]\Iarshiana, here is everything relating to the mistakes 

 which that man Marsh has made; and when the time comes, 

 Osborn, I am going to launch this on the world.' Well, he 

 did ; the bombshell was exploded in due time, and this great 

 mass of information regarding the supposed incapacity of 

 Marsh was spread on the pages of the "New York Herald" in 



